Abstract [en]

Building on a growing body of literature that seeks to understand the determinants of preferences for redistribution, this paper explores the role of intergenerational social mobility. The heart of the theoretical framework is founded on Piketty’s (1995) political preference formation model, in which personal mobility history is proposed to shape individuals’ beliefs about the extent to which effort is rewarded in society. Using individual-level data from the European Social Survey, gathered in 32 countries over the span of nearly a decade (n > 106,000), empirical evidence is found in favour of the hypothesis that downward social mobility increases support for redistribution. In contrast, no evidence is found of upward social mobility influencing redistributive preferences. The results demonstrate that preference formation is more complex than what is traditionally assumed, and hence that further research would be beneficial for a better understanding of divergence in political attitudes.